Illustration: Fig. 26.]

In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a white linen dress[1]
daintily embroidered in chain stitch. It is an excellent example of a
kind of design suitable to this stitch; the leaves and flowers are
carried out in lines of chain stitch following the outline, and in these
lines use is made of strongly contrasting colour to both show up the
form better, and also decorate it. The leaf in fig. 28 is in style
somewhat similar to this, and is intended to be carried out in two
distinct colours.

[Illustration: Fig. 27.]

[Illustration: Fig. 28.]

Chain stitches can be worked singly; they are used in this way as a
powdering over a background. Sometimes they may be seen conventionally
suggesting the small feathers on the shoulder of a bird's wing by being
dotted over it at regular intervals. Fig. 29 shows how they might be
used to carry out a tiny flower, five separate stitches represent the
petals, and two more the leaves at the base; this is a simpler and more
satisfactory method than to attempt very minute forms with satin
stitches.

[Illustration: Fig. 29.]

The common chain makes a particularly neat border stitch taken in zigzag
fashion. To work this (fig. 30)--Trace two parallel lines on the
material and work the chain across from side to side at an angle of 45 deg.
to the traced lines. For further security it is well to catch down the
end of the stitch just completed with the needle as it commences the
following one. The line can be further decorated by placing a French
knot, perhaps in a contrasting colour, in each little triangular space
left by working the stitch.

[Illustration: Fig. 30.]

[Illustration: Fig. 31.]

There is an ingenious method of working ordinary chain stitch in a
chequering of two colours (fig. 31). It is quite simple to work. Thread
a needle with two different coloured threads, commence the chain stitch
in the usual way until the thread has to be placed under the point of
the needle for forming the loop. Place only one of the two threads
underneath, leaving the other on one side out of the way, then draw the
needle and thread through over the one held down. A chain stitch will
have been formed with the thread that was looped under the needle. For
the next stitch, the alternate thread is placed under, and so on, taking
each thread in turn. The thread not in use each time usually requires a
little adjustment to make it entirely disappear from the surface.

Tw